The Importance of Mother-Tongue Development in International Education

Beatrice Morales-Bocksch and Anja Junginger presented on May the 19th 2010 to visiting teachers

Research that led us to reflect on how we teach

The importance of mother tongue development in international schools

International-mindedness and the “whole child” as a foundation for what we do

Our MT Program at ISS

International-mindedness

What does international-mindedness mean to you?

What are you doing in your classroom to promote international-mindedness?

What does it “look” or “sound” like? Do the quadrant brainstorm and discuss in your

groups.

Step 1: Becoming AwareThe ResearchThe research on children‘s language learning is powerful in its message for us.

Murphy: "What good is the best possible philosophy and curriculum if they are a closed book to many of our pupils?...We have a moral commitment  to (develop) an educational program that has little or no harmful side-effects to our pupils...especially  in  the early years program where children are still in the process of learning their mother tongue."

Cummins: "To reject a child's language in the school is to reject the child. When the message, implicit or explicit, communicated to children in the school is "Leave your language and culture at the schoolhouse door", children also leave a central part of who they are-their identities-at the schoolhouse door."

What if we don‘t pay attention?

Potential consequences of a substractive program (MT is replaced by English):

✘Loss of their mother-tongue, their „thinking“ language

✘Loss of identity and self-esteem✘Loss of access to the mainstream

curriculum

• Thomas/Collier: “When children continue to develop their abilities in two or more languages…..they gain a deeper understanding of language and how to use it effectively. They have more practice in processing language, especially when they develop literacy in both and they are able to compare and contrast the ways in which their two languages organize reality.”

• Baker: “Mother tongue promotion in the school helps develop not only the mother tongue but also children's abilities in the majority school language. Spending instructional  time through minority language in the school does not hurt children's academic development in the majority school language.”

Step 1: Becoming AwareOur populations•The population of our students has changed since our schools were founded. This is a current phenomenon in international schools as mobility is increasing and as host country nationals are increasingly looking for alternatives and opportunities for bi/multilingualism.

•It is not uncommon for more than 60% of our students to not speak English as their mother tongue, but rather to be learning it as a new language and learning through it.

Step 2: Understanding

It is precisely this population of English Language Learners who make our schools places full of rich diversity and who are the majority of our learners. This diversity should lead to international-mindedness and benefit all students when fostered in a particular way.

Realizing the Facts!

• We are all EAL teachers because we all teach students whose mother tongue is not English.

• How we teach them is strongely connected to our beliefs, our vision, our mission, and our awareness of potential issues concerning how these students can best learn.

• Research shows that what counts is not just the quantity (total immersion in English) but the quality of exposure. Second-language input must be comprehensible to promote second-language acquisition (Krashen 1996). EAL , mainstream and mother tongue lessons contribute to this kind of input.

What does international-mindedness mean to us for language learning?• There is an ethos of acceptance, no

matter where we are from. Everyone‘s language and background is of equal value.

• That while English may be the common medium for education, no one language is seen as being more important than another and we must make this visible.

Step 4: What is expected of us as a PYP/IB School?

• The school encourages student learning that strengthens the student’s own cultural identity, and celebrates and fosters understanding of different cultures.

• The school actively supports the development of the mother-tongue language of all students.

IBO Standards and Practices

The Whole Child

“Pre-existing knowledge for English language learners is encoded in their home languages. Consequently, education should explicitly teach in a way that fosters transfer of concepts and skills from the student’s home language to English. Research clearly shows the potential for this kind of cross-language transfer in school contexts that support biliteracy development.”

-Cummins 2001;Reyes 2001

Learning is all about Making Connections!

Cross Language Transfer

Learning is all about Making Connections!

Cross Language Transfer

Surface structures

CONCEPTS„The Curriculum“

Mother Tongue English

How does supporting the Mother Tongue help

children to access the curriculum?

““When students take ownership of When students take ownership of their learning-when they invest their their learning-when they invest their identities in learning outcomes – identities in learning outcomes – active learning takes active learning takes place….”Knowledge is more than place….”Knowledge is more than just the ability to remember. Deeper just the ability to remember. Deeper levels of understanding enable levels of understanding enable students to transfer knowledge from students to transfer knowledge from one context to another…” one context to another…” (Stone,Warschauer,2004)(Stone,Warschauer,2004)

“Interlingual classrooms should become a common feature of international education...Interlingual classrooms are places where international-mindedness is seen in action. Internationalism is felt and interlingual children learn who they are in the context of the classroom and the broader society.”

-Eithne Gallagher

How can we foster international-mindedness and include aspects of the Prism Model ?

Our MT Program„The Three-Program Model“ based on Maurice Carder

ISSLower School

Language Model

ISSLower School

Language Model

English immersion with effective, long-term EAL

support

English immersion with effective, long-term EAL

support

Mother TongueSupport

to make concepts accessible and com-

prehensible

Mother TongueSupport

to make concepts accessible and com-

prehensible

Cultural and Linguistic

Awareness programfor staff, students and

parents through intercultural activities

throughout the year

Cultural and Linguistic

Awareness programfor staff, students and

parents through intercultural activities

throughout the year

Step 6: Focusing our purpose

All students should be able to “Make Connections”:

Making conceptual connections to our curriculum through their mother-tongue

Making connections to our curriculum through their prior cultural experiences

Making connections in order to affirm their identity

Making connections between the English language and their mother-tongue in order to learn English better/quicker

Making connections to their prior knowledge

Step 7: How does our MT program work?(based on Maurice Carder‘s proposals)• Our EAL and mother tongue departments are a central

feature of Lower School Leadership• We are staffed by mother-tongue and EAL teachers who

are qualified , paid and attend some of the planning meetings.

• EAL, mainstream, and mother tongue teachers work closely together, sharing information on students and curriculum.

• All educators are aware that developing the mother tongue is essential to learning English.

• Mother-tongue lessons are time-tabled as an integral part of the school day, as they are part of the mainstream curriculum.

• Mother Tongue support and EAL support are inversely proportional to best meet the needs of the developing language learner within a financially feasible framework.

Step 8: Making it visible and integrated

MT displays, both separately and integrated with classroom displays.Pass on the assessment to MT teachers to have students add to them in their MT. Translate some of it or help design assessment with MT teacher/EAL teacherMotivating and inspiring our community to get to know the various cultural backgrounds and languages better through intercultural program. Allow MT teachers to play an important role when linking with parents who will be able to approach MT teachers in their own MT with questions and feedback. (ex. Conferences, reporting) MT and mainstream teachers will help to make students feel

comfortable and ‘at home’ in our school and in the ‘cultural haven’ they will have created for them.

Making it visible and integrated

Create identity/dual language booklets. (Cummins)

UoI: Have students share what they did in their MT classes.(in assemblies and in class.)

Mother-Tongue handbooks inform parents in all languages

Create a class library made up of books from many different languages, dual language books and bilingual dictionaries.

Involve the librarian : Unit of Inquiry and fiction /non-fiction books in all languages

In Summary:

Mother Tongue Literacy English Language Support

ENGLISH IMMERSION

Multicultural and multilingual environment

Some Resources:

• www.multiliteraies.ca Multiliteracies project web site; examples of dual language books (identity texts) written by ESL students (e.g., Michael Cranny [K-8] Elementary School).

• http://thornwood.peelschools.org/Dual/: Thornwood (K-5) school Dual Language Showcase site.

• Bilingualism in International Schools A Model for Enriching Language Education, Maurice Carder; Multilingual Matters, 2007.

• Equal Rights to the Curriculum, Eithne Gallagher, 2008.

• Supporting ELLs grades K-2 and 3 -12, Rojas, V.P. (1999), International Schools.

• Scaffolding Language/Scaffolding Learning: Teaching Second Language Learners in the Mainstream Classroom, Gibbons, P. (2002).

• Monolingual international schools and the young non-English-speaking child ,Edna Murphy.http:// sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/2/1/25